Category Archives: Uncategorized

No Lick Security Overalls

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no lick security overalls

Little Red-haired Girl pulled through her lumpectomies A-okay! Hooray!

Ms. SpoolTeacher had been beside herself for the day, worrying (as is her inclination to do).

Dr. Nancy said the huge one was for sure fatty, but the other…she just didn’t know. (It was a little dangling fatty feeling thing on her right rear leg, and Ms. SpoolTeacher thought for sure it was the least of the worries, not so.)

Ms. SpoolTeacher had been upholstering two large Styrofoam cubes for Dr. Nancy and wasn’t sure what to charge. It has been her experience that the labor involved in sewing is seldom appreciated or valued.

“It took you how long!?” “Why did it take so long!?” “It’s how much!!!!?”

So she labored and labored over how to calculate what to charge. In the end, she called her upholsterer friend to get her opinion and was amazed that she came up with exactly the same calculation, albeit, through a completely different analysis.

She took the job with her when she went to pick up the Little Red-haired Girl but told the receptionist, “Perhaps we should do this another day as we don’t want to have the two amounts influence each other?”

“Oh no, Dr. Nancy will be working on horses this weekend and will be needing them. We’ll just do one and then the other.”

So, Ms. SpoolTeacher said she would drive around to the back stable and off load the giant cube she had borrowed to use to fit the cover and the other second casing that they would have to put on the other cube themselves. She had designed them to open and pull off for cleaning. It fit like a glove. It was a meticulous job. It ended up taking a lot of painstaking maneuvers to perfect it. She was proud of the job.

“So,” the receptionist said, “is that for one or both? Do I need to add the fabric in or is it included?”

“The charges are for both and the fabric is already added into the charge.”

“Wow, that’s a great price!”

Suddenly Dr. Nancy popped in and exclaimed, “Wow, you said you were a good seamstress, you weren’t kidding!”

Well, that did take out some of the sting of her own underestimation of value.

How to know? Ms. SpoolTeacher was just sure they would freak out over the charges she had quoted. Well, there was no going back now. She’d have to learn from the experience and hope the good will would benefit her in the future.

The great news for the day was that little “Bumpty Dumpty” was okee dokee.

“Don’t let her lick the wounds. Do you need a cone?”

“Oh, no, she will never stand for that.”

The little red overalls are from Ms. SpoolTeacher’s niece when she was a baby. The first day, she put them on her upside down for easier peeing, etc. But as it turned out, Bumpty Dumpty didn’t go out without her so she could manage the snaps for her.

The big cube

where to start?

on and off, on and off, pin, stitch, on off

Everyone is happy.

Not just Sewing and Alterations

We do whatever it takes

Coming Soon: An apron from scratch from a border print

So sorry for the missing images. As soon as Ms. SpoolTeacher figures out why they migrated and where they are, She will fix this. She no longer know where the originals are. If you have any suggestions, She has had no luck with WP for discovering the cause/cure and forums still sound like Chinese to her. She thanks you in advance.

Volunteer Garden

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Blowin' in the wind...

Ms. SpoolTeacher has a very run down house built around 1945. The fence in the back yard is being held up by termites. When the wind blows, it sometimes looks like she wishes she had kept her insurance…She, being as low budget creative as she is, is quick on her feet to find solutions to little bugger problems like a fence trying to blow down. After close inspection, she realized that some of the fence posts were just loose in their post holes. She shoved an old 2X4, laying around doing nothin’, in the same hole and got her “pounder inner” and pounded until it was wedged in there good. Not so much blowin’ in the wind problem anymore…high 5!

Sweet Little Oso

Her sister had been staying with her for awhile a little while back; and while there with her fur family too, measures had to be taken to keep her new little “Blue Heeler” from diggin’ in the compost heap. She had been adding food scraps, leaves, and pulled, non-seeded weeds into the heap and had been turning it, adding dirt, turning, etc. Oso, the heeler, wanted to get to it so badly that she put a pallet over it and a rug and blocks. After Oso left, she uncovered it and turned it again. This was late winter, spring around the corner.She had removed the blocks, rug and pallet and had given it a real good turning; taking everything out and putting it back with just the pallet to keep her own little Fat Red-haired Girl out of the heap.

Spring came, summer started approaching. Finally rain. In Arizona, it’s usually July for the Monsoons.

Poof, all of a sudden, little green things started reaching for the sun and they didn’t look like weeds. She waited, waited, check and eventually could recognize tomatoes, cantaloupe, bell peppers.  For nearly 8 years, she has been trying, unsuccessfully, to grow anything in her dead soil, of course, to no avail. The whole reason for the compost heap. She decided she would have to improve her soil before anything was going to cooperate. Little did she expect that her scrap seeds would volunteer so easily. They were lovin’ the environs. Just lovin’ it. Then…bullet hailstorm. Horrendous, eye-putting-out-sized hail pellets pummeled the new baby leaves. She was sure they were overwhelmed. Not so quick to be defeated, below is a picture of injured leaves continuing on to provide energy and protection to the budding fruits they were producing.

Poof!

She wasn’t sure the tomatoes would produce. She saw the bees, but it was so late in the season, she thought they wouldn’t set.

happy, happy, joy, joy

Poof again. Little green tomatoes everywhere. It’s better than magic. Real life, nature, always is.

Greenie Babies

The bell peppers came up under the little tree that has been struggling three years to look like it has a hope. It too, trudges on. Inspiration to Ms. SpoolTeacher with all her struggles.

Little baby things are always so cute! Even if the camera liked the grass/weeds better :o(

Listeria-free Cantaloupe

Permaculture gardening has always been on her mind to do. To her this means, letting things grow where they may. This has been a great summer for that.

Turn, turn, turn...

Fat Little Red-haired Girl

Permaculture Fat Little Red-haired Girl, “growing” where she may!

...and a place for the mosquitoes!

Inspirational Determination

Although she doesn’t know what this tree actually is, they grow like weeds, volunteering all over her yard. They grow fast, with whatever water arrives from above and complain about nothing. Up until recently, she was pulling them out. Suddenly it occurred to her that she could let them grow, have shade all over to plant beneath and if they become too abundant, harvest them for burning…dah!

“Grandma was slow, but she was old!”

Permaculture Gardening! Yeah!

Dancing Spools

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These beautiful people…

Who are these beautiful people and how did they influence her?

Ms. SpoolTeacher’s mother loved to spool her own clothes. This picture was of the beginning of Ms. SpoolTeacher’s life. These two people met in Goosebay Labrador and fell in love. This night, they were probably headed to a dance. They loved, loved to dance. It was probably a special dance as they are dressed to the nines. There is little doubt that that beautiful vintage dress was hand-spooled. No doubt.

They would go on to have three little girls, whom Ms. SpoolTeacher’s mother would dress alike for years. Most of which were fabricated from remnants lovingly plucked from the reduced bins of House of Fabrics. (noone less than 50 years old knows about that wonderful sewing and fabric store. It just reeked of cemical dyes before there was any concern, it was the delight of all sewers to pass the doors and get that fix of fabric smell. Disneyland. A pure Disneyland of Fabrics. Countless hours…spent.)

As a little girl, Ms. SpoolTeacher sat with her two sisters with a See’s lollipop in their mouths while “mummy” looked through pattern books then scoured the bins for the best three-of-a-kind fabric cuts. Sometimes the colors would vary, but always three alike somehow.

Translucency

Ms. SpoolTeacher would lay for many hours behind her mother sitting at the Kenmore machine, stretched out on the full sized bed, daydreaming and chatting; quality time listening to the machine hum, the pressure foot going up and down, and watching her mother create a work of art for her to wear, or a new outfit for her doll.

She was about 5 when her mother couldn’t keep the needle away from her any longer.

age about five, needle and thread and some this and that…

Little Ms. SpoolTeacher was helplessly hooked.

Her career Decorating other people’s homes was started because of a wonderful Kirsch Drapery Hardware magazine that fell into her hands somewhere along the lines. She saw a way to marry her love of sewing and decorating together in the world of treating windows.

After many years of “making” (having a workroom make) other people’s ideas (however strongly influenced by herself), she wanted to create her own, using her intuition and whatever fabric fell her way.

She pulled this ensemble together based on a vision of what they might be. The ribboned dark purple was purchased because she couldn’t not, the satin stripe was from the leftover of a job probably 20 years prior and stored for such a thing as this, the plaid piping was a little remnant that seemed to surface constantly and beg to be used. It was a lightweight cotton and it just didn’t seem to have enough heft for anything substantial. It had just found it’s perfect home. The cream sheer was a “memo” sample ordered to test a sheer for a client (designer’s order memos to get a bigger sample than what is typically in a book of samples so the client and she can handle it and play with it). It was enough to cut several strips from and ruffle it up to splice between levels of this evolving drapery panel. The translucent iridescent sheer another memo (not much of it so judicious use required, splicing pieces and settling for a diagonal seam in the middle).

The diagonal satin stripe would make a nice bias un-corded lip between tiers. That fabric, more retrieved leftovers from workroom jobs, always overestimated. (best practices call for this, to insure for mistakes and be sure of enough – dye-lots are a nightmare) The bullion trim would not make it in.

                                                                                           ^ (sorry about the camera cord)

(Floor Monster and Paint Monster are showing their faces in this shot. They will have to answer to this eventually)

Bishop sleeve anyone? Several ways to use this panel.

Ms. SpoolTeacher spent this process “InSewVating” and did manage to cut two of each items, but couldn’t bring herself to fabricate the second panel, the first one was sooooo much detail work. Fortunately, she has a perfect place (an un-doored opening) to hang a single panel, even though the other side of the room has another un-doored passage that would love to have the companion – one of the millions of things she will do “later”; like all that heavy lifting!) (and getting Paint Monster to paint polka dots on the floor?!)

It could work. :o)